Mantle has consistently proven itself in a number of games and engines, to the extent that low-overhead APIs were one of the hottest topics at the 2014 Game Developer Conference. Microsoft announced DirectX® 12, a “console-like” iteration of their famous API that promises to streamline development and address programming overhead. Others talked low-overhead OpenGL™, and the practices that might need to be adopted to get there.

It’s important to highlight that AMD was an essential voice in both of these discussions, and the chronology plainly demonstrates that Mantle has been highly influential to both the theme and the existence of these discussions. Naturally, we are 100% behind any decision that provides the benefits of low-overhead game development accessible to more gamers and developers.

As DirectX® 12 games sits about 20 months away by Microsoft’s estimation (“holiday 2015”), there exists a long period of time from today where game developers must prepare their studios for a future when all major graphics APIs seek to extract the same sort of benefits that Mantle has pioneered. As the industry’s only proven low-overhead API for PC graphics, Mantle stands ready and waiting to address that gap.

Beyond that point, we expect DirectX® 12 to be every bit the robust and powerful solution Microsoft has promised it will be. We know that because we, too, are a member of the consortium Microsoft assembled to help shape this and every other version of their API since the 1990s.

When DirectX® 12 lands in late 2015, millions of AMD Radeon™ products based on the GCN Architecture will be compatible on day one. Thanks to Mantle and our presence in the console space, AMD will also stand alone with a graphics architecture that has received years of attention from developers working with low-overhead graphics APIs.

Above all, Mantle will present developers with a powerful shortcut to DirectX® 12, as the lingual similarities between APIs will make it easy to port a Mantle-based render backend to a DirectX® 12-based one if needed or desired. In addition, Mantle developers that made the bold decision to support our historic API will be well-educated on the design principles DirectX® 12 also promises to leverage. Finally, we will ensure that tomorrow’s game engines have an easy time of supporting a Mantle render backend, just as talented devs are comfortable with supporting multiple backends today to better address the needs of gamers.

IN CONCLUSION

Over the last seven months, we have been quite transparent about the origins of Mantle rooted in requests from developers, the problems we hope to solve with Mantle, and the effect it has had on this incredible industry. In our communications, even within this very blog, we’ve also been open and honest about the nature of our data and the areas we’re still actively addressing to make Mantle an even better solution for problems in game development. And today, we’ve shared with you our vision for the future of graphics, along with Mantle’s place in that future.

We heartily welcome discussion and analysis of the nature of Mantle in ways that comprehensively and accurately consider both CPU-bound and GPU-bound scenarios. We also invite inquisitive and philosophical investigation into why Mantle’s adoption has been so rapid, why Mantle is gaining traction amongst the largest and most experienced development studios, and how Mantle has shaped the direction of the graphics industry as a whole.

Whatever the future ultimately holds, we at AMD are simply proud the industry is joining us in making faster hardware through smarter software. That was our prime philosophy since the day game developers came to us—as they did each hardware vendor—asking us for a better way. We’re glad others respect that philosophy, too, and we can’t wait to put our GPUs to work in support of that mission wherever it may go.

Robert Hallock does Technical Communications for Desktop Graphics at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.